Right Angle began as a column in the now-defunct Sunday magazine in November 1991. The column allowed me the luxury of presenting an alternative to the prevailing left-liberal consensus in India. It has become the implicit signature tune for all my subsequent writings.

Thursday, November 29, 2012

It is in the nature of contemporary politics that
the more profound facets of political change are often subsumed by the clutter
of immediate developments. The first days of the winter session of Parliament
has been disrupted by a determined Opposition demanding that the Government
subject its decision to facilitate foreign direct investment in multi-brand
retailing to a parliamentary floor test. As much as the BJP and Left’s defence
of small and medium retailers who may be threatened with unequal competition,
the insistence on a voting resolution owes considerably to the belief that the
Government is extremely vulnerable on this one issue.

On its part, the Government has maintained that the
Constitution is explicit in allowing executive decisions in matters that are
not governed by specific laws. Since the larger conduct and organisation of
retail trade has been governed by executive orders, the Government is on strong
legal ground in maintaining that changes to existing orders, such as the one
the Centre notified earlier this year, does not warrant parliamentary approval.
Legally speaking, a Government is not obliged to even withdraw its executive
orders in the event of parliamentary disapproval—although it is certain that
the embarrassment would have triggered a demand for a trust vote.

In the past, Governments haven’t stood on prestige
over allowing debates under a voting rule on subjects that are governed by
executive discretion. Under the NDA, the Congress and Left joined hands in
pressing for a vote on the privatisation of BALCO. Likewise, even though the
conduct of foreign affairs is totally in the realms of executive discretion, a
‘sense of the House’ resolution was adopted in 2003 to forestall the
possibility of India getting embroiled in America’s war against Saddam Hussein.
It is precisely because the UPA-2 was unsure over its ability to cobble
together a majority that it fell back on principle to prevent a vote. Once that
problem had been successfully negotiated, it became agreeable to a debate followed
by a division. At the time of writing, it appears that a debate followed by
voting will not create any awkwardness for the Manmohan Singh Government.

Yet, the issue of parliamentary scrutiny of
contentious executive decisions is a problem that is unlikely to go away. The
Indian Constitution was formulated at a time when the Congress exercised a
stranglehold over politics. Under Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi and Rajiv
Gandhi, the Congress had a commanding majority in Parliament. Consequently, the
Opposition rarely pressed for a vote on executive decisions. However, now that
India has entered a prolonged phase of coalition governments of varying
stability and coherence, the issue is certain to present itself over and over
again. Governments with uncertain majorities cannot expect the same measure of
indulgence as regimes with a clear mandate.

The Constitution accorded the Centre with more
discretionary powers than enjoyed by its counterparts in other democracies.
Those familiar with British Constitutional history will be aware of the tussle
in the 19th century between the Whigs and Peelites over ministerial
responsibility. The Whigs favoured the entire governmental process being
subjected to parliamentary oversight while the Peelites favoured strong
government, the insulation of ministers from constituency pressures and sought
to emphasise responsibility over responsiveness. These debates have persisted
to this day. Parties which appeared to uphold Whig principles while in
Opposition have tended to become Peelite when occupying the Treasury benches. India
will also witness similar flip-flops.

Yet, some changes have already begun to be felt. As
opposed to the time when appointments to important state agencies were left
completely to the discretion of the executive, there is an attempt to curtail
the element of discretion by involving the Leader of Opposition in many of the
selection committees. The Supreme Court’s annulment of the appointment of K.V.
Thomas as Central Vigilance Commissioner also demonstrated that the executive
cannot act as before. Likewise, the process of appointment of the Director of
the Central Bureau of Investigation looks set to undergo a radical change in
the coming years, a development that augurs well for the beleaguered body.

Overall, the process of governance by discretion is
under serious challenge because the polity is fractured and there are many more
aspiring stakeholders. Even foreign policy looks set to witness important
shifts. The intervention of Tamil parties in nudging India to vote against Sri
Lanka in Geneva earlier this year and Mamata Banerjee’s veto of the Teesta
waters agreement with Bangladesh are indications of which way the wind is
blowing.

In the short-term, this move towards asserting the
supremacy of Parliament over executive discretion may well further impair
decision-making and even force a political stalemate in the future. However,
there are two positive developments that can also result from this shift to
responsive government. First, the curbs on discretionary powers may actually
erode the influence of an over-bearing state on civil society. It may actually
provide an extra space for citizens to go about their lives without bothering
about a vengeful and venal political establishment. Secondly, the process of
greater parliamentary oversight may actually propel MPs to look beyond narrow
party interests on many matters. If MPs start exercising their independent
judgment on most issues, the quality of public life is calculated to improve
significantly.

Friday, November 23, 2012

In assessing events in distant places, it is often
helpful to ask a simple question: what would we have done in a similar
situation? Had India, for example, been confronted by a constant barrage of
unprovoked rocket attacks from across the border aimed at our cities, would we
have gone crying to the international community? Maybe we would have alerted
our diplomatic missions and even presented a full picture of the happenings to
the United Nations Security Council. But our first priority would have been self-defence.
In concrete terms that would have meant military retaliation aimed at both damaging
and neutralising the adversary. Having demonstrated our determination to not
take attacks on civilian targets lying down, we would have been receptive to
international concern over a possible escalation of the conflict. But without
foreclosing the military option altogether.

The above scenario isn’t entirely hypothetical.
Those who recall the short-lived Kargil conflict in the summer of 1999 when
India was confronted by an audacious Pakistani offensive will know that this is
precisely how the Indian Government of the day reacted. Of course, the
mountains where the battles raged were largely uninhabited and there was no
real danger of large-scale civilian casualties that would have excited the
Western media. At the same time, let us not forget that the Kargil conflict
wasn’t seen as just another India-Pakistan brawl because both countries
possessed nuclear weapons. There were grave international concerns over the Indian
subcontinent being transformed into the “most dangerous” region on earth, and
it finally took direct US pressure for Pakistan to realise it was in a no-win
situation. Yet, it is important to remember that President Clinton’s pressure
on Pakistan to behave would not have happened had India not responded robustly
to the aggression.

Arguably, international relations are not always
governed by templates and long-standing conflicts such as the ones affecting
West Asia are often governed by the principles of exceptionalism. This is
particularly true of the unique problems and challenges that confront Israel, a
state that has witnessed unending conflict since its formation in 1948. Yet,
despite the strong feelings the mere mention of the ‘Jewish homeland’ arouses,
it is a measure of some reassurance that the latest conflict occasioned by
Hamas’ rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza has, by and large, produced
relatively ‘normal’ responses.

President Barack Obama epitomises the trend. Unlike
most occupants of the White House, Obama does not have a reputation for being a
natural friend of Israel. On the contrary, his relationship with the doughty Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been so awkward that commentators have
even speculated over the likely end to the special US-Israel relationship. Yet,
his first reaction to the rocket war launched by Hamas was unequivocal and
based entirely on common sense: “The first job of any nation state is to
protect its citizens. And so I can assure you that if… somebody was sending
rockets into my house where my two daughters sleep at night, I’m going to do
everything in my power to stop that. And I would expect the Israelis to do the
same thing.”

Unlike the past where almost every Israeli move
aimed at strengthening its national defences have been viewed as expressions of
‘Zionist imperialism’, the latest tension has not been blamed on Israel. Indeed,
the only criticisms of Israel are that its retaliatory attacks have been
‘disproportionate’, have been accompanied by some rhetorical flourishes of its
Minister of Strategic Affairs Moshe Yaalon to “blow Gaza back to the Middle
Ages” and its threat to undertake a ground campaign if the attacks persist. The
rush of dignitaries to Israel haven’t been accompanied by expressions of
righteous indignation over Israeli recklessness but a concern that a ground war
would be tactically imprudent and result in Hamas painting itself as the
underdog. The principle of Israel’s right to self-defence hasn’t been seriously
contested particularly when, as in this case, it is faced with an adversary
that openly proclaims that “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until
Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”

These developments mark a significant departure from
2010 when the Israeli raid on a ship allegedly carrying humanitarian relief to
Gaza resulted in an onrush of anti-Israel sentiments in the Muslim world and in
the campuses of the US and Europe, and contributed immeasurably to Turkey
disengaging from its measured relationship with Tel Aviv. But thanks to its
knee-jerk reversal of its earlier policy, Turkey also finds itself reduced to
the role of a passive bystander in the region.

It is also noteworthy that the election of a Muslim
Brotherhood candidate, with deep ties to Hamas, in Egypt’s first democratic
election has not succeeded in making Israel more vulnerable. On paper, Egypt
has kept faith with its new ideological proclivities by withdrawing its
Ambassador from Tel Aviv and charging Israel of aggressive intent. However,
behind the scenes it is fully engaged in trying to cobble together a working
cease-fire and not responding emotionally to Hamas’ appeal to join the good
fight against Israel. The fragility of the Egyptian economy, its dependence on the
US for both development and military assistance, and the delicate balance
between the army and the civilian government has made it wary of rushing to the
assistance of Hamas.

Overall, there appears to be a creeping realisation
in the world’s capitals that, far from emerging as a slightly more rooted
alternative to the largely discredited Fatah leadership of the Palestinians,
the Hamas has shed very little of its fanatical determination to destroy Israel
and drive out the Jewish people from the region. Hamas may have broken from
Iran on the issue of support to the anti-Assad rebels in Syria, but along with
the theocracy in Iran and the splinter jihadi groups in Gaza, it poses an abiding
threat to a peaceful resolution of the problems that cropped up since the war
of 1967. Like the LTTE which was destroyed by the Sri Lankan military at a
terrible cost, Hamas has absolutely no hesitation in using civilians as human
shields. It actively seeks more civilian deaths from Israeli strikes (and
‘friendly fire’) on the ghoulish belief that greater the number of ‘martyrs’
the more the resolve to fight Israel to the bitter end.

For the past decade, thanks to some misplaced
humanitarianism, there has been a tendency to question Israel’s credentials on
all counts. This has seen many countries wilfully turn a blind eye to the real
nature of fanatical anti-Zionism. The latest spat in Gaza may not radically
alter this gratuitous hostility to the only country in the region that combines
a vibrant democracy with economic development. But even if it forces
international opinion (including in India) to look a little more carefully at
the larger agenda of groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention the
regime in Iran, it will be a step in the right direction. In the coming years,
as many more authoritarian regimes struggle to cope with angry upheavals, the
democratic world will be forced to acknowledge that Israel epitomises the
values it is comfortable with. The alternatives presented by those who seek an
Israel-free West Asia are too hideous to contemplate.

Incorrect as it may
sound, the alternative to another organised ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Jews
is the progressive Israel-isation—in terms of values and enterprise—of the
region. Having demonstrated its hard face, Israel should now look to also marketing
its soft power.The Telegraph, November 23, 2012

Saturday, November 17, 2012

The motives may be extremely cynical but there is no
question that the attempt by the Prime Minister and the Finance Minister to
engage with the principal Opposition party prior to the winter session of
Parliament, will be welcomed by those committed to strengthening the
institutional foundations of Indian democracy. With a fragile majority that can
be overturned by either design or accident, the Government is aware that it
cannot realistically hope to get fresh legislation through unless it commands
bipartisan support. And unless it can show tangible progress in securing the
passage of ‘reforms’ legislation, the Government of Manmohan Singh may as well
retreat into history.

Sandwiched between its visceral loathing for the BJP
and its desperation to show that there is still life left in the UPA, the Government
has prudently chosen to sup with the representatives of forces it regard as
satanic. It marks a change. For quite some time, a civil relationship between
the Government and the BJP had broken down on two counts. First, say those in
the know of the room temperature in Race Course Road, the PM regarded L.K.
Advani as being wilfully discourteous to him on a number of occasions. An
incident which is said to have particularly rankled in the minds of the PM involved
the NDA chairperson allegedly throwing a document at the PMs table. Secondly,
it is said that the PM was livid with Leader of Opposition Sushma Swaraj’s
‘mota maal’ comment in the context of Coalgate.

Whether these constitute the real reasons for keeping
any meaningful Government-Opposition engagement on hold, or are being cited as
justification for the Congress’ pre-determined haughtiness is a matter of
conjecture. What is, however, undeniable is that during earlier sessions of
Parliament, when the Government had a comfortable working majority in the Lok
Sabha, the UPA-2 leadership never felt a need to forge a cross-party consensus
on issues of governance. However, now that it faces difficulties in securing
the passage of economic legislation, an attempt is being made to reach out to
the Opposition. The Government knows that there are limits to talking up the
economy and unless pious intentions are accompanied by concrete action, there
is every possibility that the mood of cautious optimism will disappear.

Granted that the overtures by Manmohan Singh and
P.Chidambaram are governed by expediency and self-interest, how should the
Opposition react? The Opposition has a litany of grievances against the Centre.
Apart from non-consultation, there are grave charges centred on the Centre’s
duplicitous conduct in matters governing the treatment of non-Congress-ruled
states, not to mention the blatant misuse of central agencies such as the CBI.
Together, these have contributed to a vitiated environment and the feeling in
Opposition circles that blind hostility is the best way to confront the
Government.

Then there is the entire corruption issue. Although
the Opposition momentum on corruption and cronyism has been somewhat checked by
the turbulence in the BJP over Nitin Gadkari’s unwillingness to do the
honourable thing and retire to Nagpur, the Parliament session does give the
entire Opposition a chance to put the Government on the mat on issues ranging
from Robert Vadra and the National Herald properties to the Swiss accounts in
HSBC. But the moment the Opposition tries to raise any of these issues, the
Congress is bound to respond belligerently and the resulting bedlam is certain
to dash all hopes of any constructive engagement. For the Congress, ‘reforms’
are important but not as important as the honour and prestige of the Gandhi
family.

Then there is the role of the FDI in multi-brand
retail which, for inexplicable reasons, the Congress has chosen to make the signature
tune of its entire ‘reforms’ thrust. Regardless of the perceived economic
benefits that the entry of retail giant Walmart brings to India, the fact is
that political India does not believe that such an entry is desirable at this
time. A vote in Parliament will clearly reveal that the Government is in a
minority on this issue, which is why the UPA’s political managers will do their
best to prevent any voting. But, having smelt an advantage and the Trinamool
Congress determined to engage in fierce battle on this issue, why will the
Opposition let the Government escape embarrassment? Would the Congress have
shown similar generosity had a BJP-led Government pushed through a major move
without bothering about the sense of Parliament?

On the retail trade FDI question, the Government
finds itself in an awkward bind. As a symbol of ‘reforms’, this is a measure whose
effects will be largely symbolic. It is doubtful if the measure will result in
any significant quantum of FDI. Neither is there any evidence that the
state-centric measure will make distribution channels for agricultural produce
more efficient. If good reforms involve good politics, the Government should
actually be willing to eat humble pie on this issue and instead concentrate on
effecting changes in pensions, insurance and ensuring the passage of the
Forward Contracts Regulation Bill which was mooted in 2006.

It is inexplicable
why the Government has made the moth-eaten FDI in retail a prestige issue,
unless, of course, we are to read grave meaning in the recent revelation that
Walmart played the bribery game in India. If the Government gives in to the
Opposition on this issue, its chances of addressing the more substantial
reforms becomes brighter.Sunday Pioneer, November 18, 2012

I don’t know if ‘secular’ mothers have acquired the habit
of threatening their brats with the approaching presence of Narendra Modi if
violate their bedtime curfew, but recent events would certainly indicate that
the Gujarat Chief Minister is fast acquiring the status of a juju man—the
political reincarnation of Dr No, Goldfinger and Mogambo, all rolled into one.
His hidden hand has been detected behind every “conspiracy”, real or imaginary.
Last week, he was charged by a venerable ideologue of the RSS of being the
mastermind behind the plot to get rid of BJP President Nitin Gadkari—an
accusation which, ironically, makes the media (which did a lot of legwork
chasing the story) his pliant instrument. Six years ago, it was whispered that
he had placed hidden cameras to expose the spurious claims of celibacy of a
leading BJP functionary. Indeed, so intense is the Modi-phobia that Samajwadi
Party expelled a former MP because he had interviewed the CM for an Urdu
publication.

The irony is that the ever-growing obsession with the
Modi peril coexists happily with what every TV Breaking News periodically
proclaims is yet another “Big blow to Modi”. This mindless template touched
such absurd heights that impish sections of the social media began prefacing
every seemingly sombre assertion with “In a big blow to Modi…”

Flippancy apart, there is little doubt that in the
troubled India of today, Modi has become the main talking point of everyone
concerned with the future of the country. From diplomatic parties and investor
conferences to humble tea shop gatherings, Modi invariably intrudes into conversations.
To his many detractors, particularly in the liberal intelligentsia, he is the
personification of authoritarian evil. Such a man, we are repeatedly assured,
can never reach the top because India abhors certitudes. To his fans—and they
are very vocal on social media—NAMO is what India needs to realise its true
potential and achieve greatness.

If it comes to finally making up its mind, India has
a democratic way of conflict resolution: through elections. However, clarity is
possible if a clear choice is presented to voters. The curious feature of the
games being played out in the BJP and elsewhere is that they are carefully
aimed at blurring the political options before the electorate. The pundits have
proffered arguments about the pitfalls of coalition politics, the
regionalisation of national elections and, above all, of the Hindu celebration
of ambiguities. Within the saffron parivar there are said to be misgivings over
an emerging personality cult and preference for a collective leadership that gives
space and power to faceless apparatchiks with pious pretensions and strange ringtones.

At one time, the preferred argument against Modi lay
in the poser: what will the world say? Of late, however, there is greater
appreciation of the fact that for the West there are no permanent friends and
permanent enemies, just oodles of self-interest.

Yet, there are two hurdles that remain to be crossed
before India can get over this needlessly prolonged foreplay and confront the ‘Modi
question’ head on. The first is the verdict of Gujarat in the Assembly
election. Modi must win conclusively if he is to embark on a national journey.
The second is the endorsement by the BJP. Here what will count is the momentum
Modi is able to generate after the Gujarat results. If the BJP’s foot soldiers
repose confidence in him as the best bet against the Congress, the resistance
of Dad’s Army will be of little avail.

It is hazardous to look into the future. Yet what
can be said with certainty is that Modi will add a riveting dimension to the
general election. First, he will threaten
a cosy, chalta hai consensus that has
infected all walks of public life. His will, in effect, be an assault on the degenerate
Brahmanical system of slipperiness. Secondly, he will personify the raw energy
of an India that thinks big and wants to achieve big. There will be nothing mealy-mouthed
about a Modi charge on privilege, cronyism and the status quo. He will offer
decisive choices that could unsettle the faint hearted.

Friday, November 16, 2012

American presidential elections, with all its
accompanying media hype and razzmatazz, hold out a strange fascination for
those who insist on celebrating the virtues of ‘evolved’ democracies over
fledgling ones. In the early phase of the 2009 general election when the
memories of President Barack Obama’s spectacular 2008 triumph was fresh in
everyone’s mind, the chief poll strategist of the BJP was exasperated by the
frequency with which advertising professionals making a pitch for the party
account tried to suggest that the themes of the Democratic Party campaign could
be replicated in India.

Since the Left-liberal intelligentsia exercises a
disproportionate influence on media common sense, President Obama’s re-election
earlier this month has again begun to shape a part of the political discourse
in India. Apart from the usual lamentation about the Indian politician’s
inability to make the type of inspirational speeches the US President delivered
in Chicago to celebrate his victory, there has been the familiar outpouring of
multiculturalist joy at white, male Americans having been shown their place by
a rainbow coalition of the diverse. Most important, there has been unconcealed
glee over the deflation of a Christian fundamentalist agenda centred on the denial
of abortion rights for women. The implications were clear: the age of
conservatism that Ronald Reagan heralded in 1980 and which George W. Bush
upheld so robustly till 2008, has finally been rolled back.

Whether two successive defeats in the race for the
White House can upturn a social agenda that has struck roots in the past 25
years must await the judgment of history. After all, between the Reagan and
Bushes, Bill Clinton also occupied the White House for eight years. Clinton was
a charismatic figure and still remains a great charmer who contributed in no
small measure to motivating the loyalists to stand in long queues for Obama on
November 6. But, as the conservative writer George Will had remarked in 1998,
he was “akin to the man that walked across a field of snow and left no
footprints.”

That it takes more than securing 270 electoral votes
to redefine the tone of society should be apparent. In most democratic
countries, politics is by and large about governmental power and not social
attitudes. True, there is no Great Wall of China separating the two. Yet, until
the notion of the ‘moral majority’ came into play in the US of the 1970s as a
reaction to the permissive liberalism of the late-1960s, it was impossible to
apply the conservative-liberal schism to political parties en bloc. The
Democratic Party of the 1960s and 1970s, for example, had its share of liberals
such as the Kennedys, Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern but they coexisted
with pragmatists such as Lyndon Johnson and racial segregationists such as
George Wallace and Strom Thurmond.

In India too, it was facile to suggest that the
Nehruvian era was marked by a simple liberal-conservative polarisation. The
Nehru family may have paraded their ‘progressive’ views but they had to factor
in the deep social conservatism of the likes of Purshottam Das Tandon and
Morarji Desai. Likewise, the conservatism of the Swatantra Party was limited to
economic management and the conduct of foreign policy. On social issues, the
pro-business stalwarts such as Minoo Masani and even, up to a point, C.
Rajagopalachari were definitely more ‘progressive’ than many of their Congress
counterparts.

Past trends are, however, not necessarily a guide to
the present. The culture wars that have erupted as a consequence of economic
change (notably globalisation), the rise of feminism and the re-discovery of
religiosity have had an impact on party systems. According to the discourse
that is shaped by liberal perceptions, the Congress is held to be the
progressive party while the BJP is construed as the epitome of regressive
attitudes. This perception has even shaped voting preferences. The Congress,
which is seriously beleaguered on the issue of mega-corruption and crony
capitalism, has tried (often very successfully) to offset its poor performance
in government with its allegedly uncompromising stand on secularism. The
secular-communal divide has become the Indian equivalent of the sharp
polarisation in the US over ‘family values’, the Judaeo-Christian ethos and
abortion. Consequently, using an imagery borrowed from a very different
democracy, the BJP has been painted as the desi version of Mitt Romney’s white,
male vote bank which is disdainful of the educated, the modern woman and ethnic
minorities.

As a caricature of the real world this polarisation
holds good. However, on closer examination the loose ends become visible. The
Congress makes a big deal about the separation of religion and politics.
Ironically, what is conveniently glossed over is the fact that the greatest
influence of theology-based certitudes is to be found in the Muslim minority of
India, particularly its defence of sharia law and its identification with the
wider ummah. These attitudes have, ironically, been internalised in the
Congress and repackaged as secularism. Thus, secular commonality makes it
possible for the Congress to seek expedient alliances with the Samajwadi Party
which combines its espousal of Muslim autonomy with regressive attitudes
towards women.

Like Obama who
successfully leveraged the culture wars and old-style vote bank politics to
defeat the Romney challenge, social issues have always proved handy for
formations that don’t have a worthwhile record of good governance. This is a
lesson India’s politicians would do well to imbibe. To some, Obama is
inspirational; to others he is a hoax.Deccan Chronicle/ Asian Age, November 16, 2012

Unlike the Left that sees itself as an international
tendency, the Centre-Right is inclined to be more national in its outlook. The
conclusive re-election of US President Barack Obama was consequently an event
celebrated by the Left and liberal forces world-wide, not least, in India. The
defeat of his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, on the other hand, didn’t
generate a similar solidarity of the despondent. In Britain, the governing
Conservative Party, for example, had carefully detached itself from Romney and
had shown a marked inclination to be supportive of Obama.

The national orientation of Centre-Right forces has,
however, not been a deterrent to various commentators drawing parallels with
their own countries. Some of this was, predictably, puerile and as laughable as
those who imagined that the Indian general election of 2009 could be fought and
won using Obama’s famous “Yes we can” slogan. In a more serious vein, there were
scholars and commentators that gleamed similarities between the Republican
failure to grapple with the emergent identity politics of minority groups in
the US and the BJP’s over-dependence on the caste Hindus of Middle India. The
implication was obvious: there can be no serious Centre-Right challenge to the
Congress and its allies until the BJP go beyond what is referred in the US as
‘heartland’ politics.

Just because all the features of the US experience
don’t apply to India is no reason for the entire argument to be rubbished.
There are at least two features of the American landscape that are loosely
mirrored in India.

First, demographic data suggests a definite
“browning” of America. The proportion of white voters is gradually coming down
and new immigration has led to the rise in the proportion of Hispanic and Asian
voters, particularly in the urban clusters. It was Obama’s energetic
mobilisation of these minorities, particularly the African Americans, which
enabled him to see off a determined Romney challenge that was primarily based
on ‘white’ exasperation with Obama.

Secondly, there is some evidence to suggest that US
voters were divided in their attitudes to the social agenda of both candidates.
Republicans were perceived to be excessively Christian, fanatically opposed to
abortion and even contraception, and generally illiberal. These attitudes are
believed to have repelled women, including white women, and prevented the
election from becoming a referendum on Obama’s performance.

Both these themes from last week’s US presidential
election resonate in India and have a relevance to the management of politics
by the BJP.

To begin with, there is now enough demographic data
to indicate there is a rising importance of the minority vote across India.
There are approximately 150 to 160 Lok Sabha constituencies where the Muslim
community account for 20 per cent or more of the voters. Empirical and
anecdotal evidence suggests that Muslim turnout in elections is significantly
higher than other communities. This implies that the Muslim community exercises
an influence far greater than their actual numbers would suggest—a situation
that was true for the African Americans who voted in large numbers and
resoundingly for Obama on November 6.

The BJP receives less than five per cent of the
Muslim vote and this figure is unlikely to improve in the immediate future.
More important, in many constituencies the Muslims vote strategically by which
is meant that the community focuses its primary attention on ensuring the
defeat of the BJP candidate. As the main ‘secular’ party, Congress is the
principal beneficiary of this tactical voting, although there are regional
variations.

There is a suggestion that the BJP should secularise
itself more and remove misgivings from the minds of Muslim voters. As the
Congress found out between 1937 and 1946, this is easier said than done. The
alternative suggestion that the BJP should embrace strident Hindutva and forge
the unity of all Hindus belongs to the realms of fantasy. In today’s climate
nothing would be worse for the BJP than contrived religio-political
nationalism. The party runs the risk of focussing on issues that are not
uppermost in the minds of Hindus.

Romney may have failed to fully capitalise on his
better credentials for running the economy. That does not mean the approach was
flawed. In today’s India, economic management, anti-corruption and development
are the issues that concern the electorate. These are the issues the Congress
is most vulnerable. The BJP has no choice but to focus on these.

Yet there is a risk of derailment. Just as Romney
lost out among the young and women by being to be on the side of social
regression, the BJP is invariably distracted by irrelevant issues that touch on
social and religious attitudes. The objection to some suggestive song in a
Bollywood film was the latest of these. What this loss of focus does is to
weaken the party’s already tenuous hold on women and young voters, in sharp
contrast to the late-1990s when the BJP was fired by youth support.

To prevail against the powerful forces of sectional
mobilisation the BJP has to be single-minded in its focus on the economy and
governance and complement it with organisational rigour. In effect this means
achieving the maximum unity of every group that doesn’t have a theological allergy
to the party. The finer points of contested social and religious agendas need
to be consigned to the cold storage.

What was powerfully
demonstrated in the US was a simple truth: without securing the ‘swing’ vote,
the ‘core’ vote becomes valueless. Sunday Pioneer, November 11, 2012

Thursday, November 08, 2012

In any contest involving the top political job,
there are no prizes for the guy who comes second. On the contrary, the
post-mortem exercise often leaves the runner-up even more bruised since the
focus is invariably on his personal shortcomings, the strategic miscalculations
of his team and his misreading of the electoral landscape. Moreover, there is
an unending preoccupation with missed opportunities and the what-if questions.

Historians who have studied presidential elections
in the United States have often thrown the what-if teaser to their readers.
What if, it is often asked, Richard Nixon had cared to remove his six o’clock
shadow and been a little more careful in choosing his suit for the legendary TV
debate with John F. Kennedy in 1960? If nothing else, Nixon would certainly
have appeared a less ghostly personality than his Democratic challenger who cut
a dashing figure on the screen. Appearances mattered because the majority of
those who saw the encounter on TV thought Kennedy was the clear winner, while
the majority who heard the debate on radio thought that Nixon had prevailed. The
issue is relevant because the results revealed a mere 0.2 per cent difference
in the popular vote between the winner and the loser.

There is certain to be a similar, big what-if
question that future studies of the 2012 presidential election are bound to
throw up. Was President Barack Obama the luckiest presidential candidate, with
God on his side? Consider the facts. For the week before Superstorm Sandy
created havoc in the east coast of US, Obama had witnessed Mitt Romney steadily
closing the gap and, indeed, two days before the storm, overtaking him in most
of the polls. Romney seemed to be on a roll and the President, far from being
the silver-tongued inspirational orator, had become distinctly unfocussed. So
much so that he had to summon the evergreen charmer President Bill Clinton to
shore up his defences and rally the faithful.

Sandy halted the Romney momentum, allowed Obama to
act presidential and bipartisan and, most important, reminded wavering voters
that there are obvious pitfalls in taking the idea of less government to
extremes. Sandy rehabilitated Obama both personally and ideologically. It is
entirely possible that the Democrats would have won even without divine
intervention. But the margin of victory would have been tantalisingly close.
Sandy succeeded in informing many people who were disappointed by Obama’s
performance but who were averse to voting for Romney to take a second look at
the President, help conclude that he wasn’t such a bad guy after all and,
therefore, worth the effort of a vote.

If Sandy did indeed make the critical difference
between a wafer-thin margin and a conclusive victory, it also calls into
question the resulting over-interpretation of the implications of the
President’s re-election. For a start, it is important to keep some elementary
electoral statistics in mind. The margin of Obama’s victory (it may increase
after the full Florida results come in) against Romney was 2.82 million votes
(2.4 per cent). That this was nowhere near the awesome 9.52 million vote (7.2
per cent) margin separating him and Senator John McCain in 2008 need not be
held against him. An underperforming presidency was lucky to just register a
victory on November 6 and limit the loss in electoral votes to the states of
Indiana and North Carolina. To my mind, what is more significant is that Obama
polled nearly 9 million votes less than what he did in 2008. It may also be worth noting that the
Republicans retained control of the House of Representatives and confined their
net Senate loss to just two seats—including that of the bigot who made the
bizarre comment about a conception from rape being a gift of God.

Ever since the exit polls suggested that Obama’s
re-election was made possible by focussed mobilisation of African Americans,
Hispanics, students, sexual minorities and women (particularly single women),
there has been a clamour to suggest that the President has ridden the crest of
a social revolution. Elated by a victory they never imagined would be so
conclusive, a section of the commentariat has argued that the 2012 election
marks the death of social conservatism, fiscal conservatism and the so-called
moral majority. In 2004, at a time the George W. Bush administration was on a
high and scholars were describing the US as a ‘Right nation’, Samuel Huntington
had warned of a steady erosion of the Judaeo-Christian values that had hitherto
set the tone for America. Was his prophecy now unfolding?

The statistical evidence indicates a compelling need
to be cautious about rushing to judgment. Over the years, some occupants of the
White House have certainly redefined politics for future generations. President
Franklin Roosevelt certainly created a New Deal coalition based on active state
intervention in the economy. On his part, President Ronal Reagan demolished the
Democratic consensus of yore and put self-improvement, low taxes and Christian
values on top of the agenda. Indeed, in seeking re-election both FDR and Reagan
improved on their majorities (just as Dwight D. Eisenhower, Richard Nixon and
George W. Bush also did). This is the first occasion an incumbent President has
been credited with a social revolution after actually losing votes.

Maps can often distort perspectives but a bird’s eye
of the electoral map of the US doesn’t endorse the claims of a social upheaval.
What the huge swathe of red states bordered on the north-east and west by blue
borders point to is a deeply divided America. It is true, as the pundits in TV
studios emphasised on election night, that states such as Nevada, New Mexico,
Colorado and even Florida which should have been Republican, voted for Obama
for two consecutive elections.

That new immigrants, particularly Hispanics who
today account for nearly 10 per cent of the national electorate, perceive
Republicans as less sympathetic to their interests and aspirations is
undeniable. An emerging bloc of minority voters comprising Blacks, Hispanics
and Asians may also, in time, become a reliable support base for the Democrats,
particularly as the overwhelming white dominance of the country is diluted.
However, those with a sense of history will readily admit, that voting blocs
have never remained constant. Till the election of 1964, for example, the
South, particularly the old Confederate states, was overwhelmingly committed to
the Democratic Party so much so that Republicans didn’t even bother campaigning
there. Yet the convulsions created by the Civil Rights legislation passed by
President Lyndon Johnson resulted in the South become solidly Republican after
1968.

A historical perspective is necessary as a
corrective to the impression that President Obama has crafted a new Democratic
majority that will, in time, make Republicans unelectable to the White House.
Certainly there are many lessons for the Republicans, not least of which is the
need to tap the social conservatism of Hispanic voters and address the mismatch
between gender and community. The Republicans also need to seriously deliberate
on the wisdom of incorporating contentious social issues such as abortion and
contraception into the larger political platform.

Against this, however, there is an equal danger that
an exultant Democratic movement may carry minorityism and social liberalism a
bit too far and, in the process, project the metropolitan values of California
and New York in places less inclined to appreciate the virtues of personal
liberty over social cohesion.

In securing
re-election against tremendous odds, President Obama has shown himself a crafty
strategist. But has his victory turned existing politics on its head? The jury
is still out on that question. The Telegraph, November 9, 2012

Saturday, November 03, 2012

If the old Chinese saying about the finger pointing
to the moon and the idiot pointing to the finger ever needed validation, it was
provided by the Indian political class, cutting across parties.

Last Thursday, the Janata Party president
Subramanian Swamy held a press conference about certain curious developments
involving the Congress Party, the Associated Journals Limited which once
published the now-defunct National Herald, and a newly-formed not-for-profit
company Young Indians controlled by members of the Gandhi family. Swamy
levelled potentially serious allegations of illegality against all three
entities. A functionary in Rahul Gandhi’s ‘office’ dismissed the charges as
bogus and threatened Swamy with legal action (presumably defamation) if he
persisted with his campaign.

As if on cue, various Congress leaders sprang out of
the woodwork and questioned Swamy’s motives and credentials. On TV, I heard
Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tiwari suggest that Swamy expend
his energies looking at the businesses of BJP President Nitin Gadkari who, by
the way, has been alleging a media conspiracy to discredit him and his Purti
group.

For the sake of argument let us assume that Swamy is
a dodgy politician who in the past has hurled many charges against Sonia
Gandhi. Certainly, there are grounds to believe that Swamy has cried ‘wolf’ on
too many occasions in the past. This probably explains why there was initially
a hesitation both among the media and the political class to take his claims
seriously.

At the same time, Swamy has not been a consistent
maverick. His Janata Party may well be just a letterhead but there is also no
denying that it was his tenacity plus a great deal of relentless excavation of
facts that led to the 2-G scandal getting the attention of the Supreme Court.
Swamy has indeed miscued at times but there is no reason to believe that he has
lost the right to make a serious intervention. And his intervention last Friday
was indeed very serious.

It was grave enough for two things to happen. First,
after a show of bravado in the late hours of Thursday, Rahul Gandhi’s so-called
office quietly dropped all suggestions of slapping Swamy with a defamation
case. Presumably, someone had alerted the boy scouts of the serious dangers of
all three Gandhi shareholders of Young Indian, not to mention Motilal Vora and
Sam Pitroda, being dragged before some Metropolitan Magistrate’s Court and
subjected to insolent questioning under oath. On Friday, at the AICC briefing,
party spokesman P.C. Chacko said that “If Swamy has the guts he should sue
Rahul and Sonia Gandhi”.

Secondly, again presumably on legal advice, the AICC
General Secretary Janardhan Dwivedi was compelled to admit that it had indeed
given an interest-free loan of Rs 90 crore to Associated Journals Ltd. According
to the report in Hindu, Associated
Journals, he added, was “a companion organisation of the Congress, and it is
the party’s duty to revive the institution and the newspapers under it.”

It is best left to the Election Commission and the
judiciary to determine the legal status of a “companion organisation” and to
assess the validity of the AICC claim that the Representation of People Act has
“strict accounting rules about inflows but there is nothing on how you spend
it.” But the Congress’ interpretation of statutes opens up fascinating
possibilities.

Does it, for example, mean that it would be
perfectly in order for the BJP to show an equal measure of generosity towards
the “social entrepreneurship” ventures of its beleaguered President?
Alternatively, will the Congress nod in approval if the BJP decided to bankroll
RSS initiatives like the Vanvasi Kalyan ashrams and the Saraswati Shishu
Mandirs? In value terms these bodies could well qualify as “companion
organisations”.

Dwivedi has suggested that there is no bar on
political parties spending their income in any manner they deem fit. The AICC
once chose to loan—it seems more like a donation—Rs 90 crore to the publishers
of National Herald. What prevents it from extending generous loans of varying
sums to other media organisations that choose to apply for “companion” status?
The EC has been expending its energies trying to put an end to the menace of
‘paid news’ during elections. They needn’t worry any longer. The AICC has come
up with a perfect way out, which it claims is not only legal but operates by
appointment to the owners of the Congress Party.

Why restrict the potential benefits to the media?
The AICC-Associated Journal-Young Indian precedent has shown the way for anyone
with a measure of dirty money to whitewash it. The method is simple: pay the
cash to a political party and, by arrangement, ensure the party extends a
zero-interest loan (which can subsequently be written off) to a nominated
individual or company. It is so simple that I don’t know why politicians bother
with shell companies and fictitious addresses.

The problem with
Narendra Modi is that he is a rustic, out of his depth in the world of the bent
and the beautiful. He did not know of the Congress’ ‘companion’ scheme whereby
it takes only a Rs 50 lakh investment in a company that has had its liabilities
met by the AICC to yield a commercial property on Bahadurshah Zafar Marg in
Delhi many value at Rs 500 crore. As the crafty and politically correct
copywriter may have said: “Congress ka haath, companion ke saath”. Sunday Pioneer, November 4, 2012

Friday, November 02, 2012

There is something in the air of Lutyens’ Delhi that
makes its inhabitants heady over any real or proposed reshuffle in the Union
Council of Ministers. During his five years at the helm, Rajiv Gandhi pandered
to this yearning for unending churning by changing his ministerial team every
six months or so. By contrast, Manmohan Singh has been partial to continuity.
Maybe this has been due to the fact that he was never a complete master of his
own destiny. Buffeted between coalition imperatives and the non-playing
captains in 10 Janpath, he has operated under severe limitations.

Last week’s reorganisation of the team was a little
different from half-hearted exercises of the past. First, this time there were
no coalition pressures. Apart from a solitary Minister of State from the
Nationalist Congress Party who was quietly palmed off to his mentor Sharad
Pawar’s ministry, the alterations were exclusively a Congress affair. Whether
the Congress has the comfort of numbers to be able to confine its sights
exclusively to the party is something that must await the course of the winter
session of Parliament beginning later in November. However, to the outside
world the Prime Minister and Congress President maintained the pretence that
the party had a majority on its own. The real significance of the openings created
by the departure of the Trinamool Congress and the reluctance of the DMK to
fill its ministerial quota were quite deliberately understated.

Secondly, this delusion of grandeur was further
maintained by the special accommodation of Andhra Pradesh. That the late Y.S.
Rajashekhara Reddy contributed disproportionately to the success of the UPA in
both 2004 and 2009 is a matter of record. However, it is clear that the
benefits that accrued to the state in October 2012 stemmed less from Andhra’s
clout in the Congress than from its vulnerability. The elevation of Pallam Raju
to the Cabinet, the inclusion of Chiranjeevi as a Minister of State with
independent charge and the accommodation of other junior worthies may actually
seem a desperate measure to somehow contain the pincer movement by the YSR
Congress and the Telengana Rashtriya Samity. Recent opinion polls suggest that
the Congress may find it extremely difficult to win more than five Lok Sabha
seats in the event of a snap election.

If the past is any indication, the mere induction of
ministers doesn’t by itself change political equations in the localities. The
Government of Atal Behari Vajpayee had some five Cabinet ministers from
undivided Bihar at the time of the Lok Sabha dissolution in 2004. However, both
the BJP and its ally did disastrously in Bihar at the parliamentary election.
Likewise, when the V.P. Singh wave first hit Uttar Pradesh, Rajiv Gandhi tried
to offset his estranged colleague’s influence among Thakurs by resurrecting
Dinesh Singh from oblivion and appointing him External Affairs minister. This
had very little effect on the ground.

Inducting a politician into the ministry may, at
best, give an individual enhanced status in the locality. But symbolic gestures
rarely translate into the larger political goodwill the Congress craves for.
What matters is the wider political message.

To the extent that the Congress was desirous of
packaging last week’s reshuffle as an attempt to give more responsibility to
younger ministers the party was aware of the importance of the big picture.
Although statistically the average of Manmohan Singh’s team has fallen marginally
from 65 years to roughly 64 years, the Congress was successful in conveying the
message that the process of generational change that was being demanded has
begun, albeit modestly.

More important was the emergence of another theme
that the Congress, perhaps understandably, was not unduly anxious to
over-emphasise: the domination of the economic ministries by those who have the
reputation of being reformers and who share the Prime Minister’s broad economic
philosophy. The injection of a measure of ideological coherence into the
economic ministries is no doubt welcome. At least the coming months may see an
end to the confusion over and resistance to market-based reforms. Manmohan may
even take advantage of his nominee in the Railways Ministry to try and remove a
major infrastructural bottleneck. Indeed, so high is the apparent optimism of
being able to achieve reforms and ensure fiscal consolidation that Finance
Minister P. Chidambaram announced the Government’s willingness to travel by the
fiscal roadmap of the Vijay Kelkar committee. Chidambaram has also been less
squeamish about putting political pressure on the Reserve Bank of India to cut
interest rates.

What this implies is something quite dramatic. Does
the behaviour of the Prime Minister and Finance Minister indicate that the
Congress has decided to go slow on Sonia Gandhi’s desire to expand the welfare
net? Expressed in another way, has the Prime Minister decided to liberate
himself from the shackles of populism for the remainder of his tenure?

The signs are confusing. At one level the Government
has chosen to persevere with its in-principle decision to raise user charges in
power, fuel and railway travel. At the same times, there is frenzied activity
to ready the Aadhar scheme for direct cash transfers before the election. The
Government, it would seem, is keeping both options ready. The outcome of the
Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh election and the course of the parliament session
will us whether the regime will turn right or left. The state of the opposition
will shape the final judgment.

About Me

The Right is an endangered community in India's English-language media. I happen to be one of the few to have retained a precarious toehold in the mainstream media. I intend this blog as a sounding board of ideas and concerns.
You can read the details of my education, professional experience and political inclinations on Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swapan_Dasgupta).
RIGHT ANGLE is an archive of my published articles. USUAL SUSPECTS is my blog.